Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Who Will Be the Top Scorer on the 2024-2025 Kansas Jayhawks Basketball Team?

Episode Date: July 10, 2024

Debating who will lead Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball in scoring and points in the 2024-2025 season: how much of a favorite is Hunter Dickinson or can AJ Storr do it? What about dark horses like Rylan Griffen and Zeke Mayo? How about the high floor of KJ Adams and his playing time? Plus, Who Cares featuring Big 12 Football Media Days, Brett Yormark, KU Football, EA Sports College Football 25 ratings, Dickinson's headband, Rakease Passmore's dunk and more.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!GametimeDownload the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONCOLLEGE for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply.eBay MotorsFrom brakes to exhaust kits and beyond, eBay Motors has over 122 million parts to keep your ride-or-die alive. With all the parts you need at the prices you want, it’s easy to bring home that big win. Keep your ride-or-die alive at EbayMotors.com. Eligible items only. Exclusions apply. eBay Guaranteed Fit only available to US customers.FanDuelFanDuel, America’s Number One Sportsbook. As playoffs wind down, the sports stop sporting like we want them to. But this summer, FanDuel is hooking up ALL CUSTOMERS with a boost or a bonus, DAILY! That’s right, there’s something for everyone, every day, all summer long! Visit FANDUEL.COMand add a big win to your summer bucket list!FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN)

On today's Locked On Jayhawks, last week we posed the question, who will be the best player on KU? This week we ask, who's going to be the leading scorer? You are Locked On Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. I'm Derek Johnson. You can give me a follow on Twitter at DJohnsonRadio. He's Nick Schwert. You can give him a follow at Nick underscore Schwert.

And on today's edition of Locked On Jayhawks, we're going to be discussing who is going to be the leading score, who are the candidates to do it for the Kansas basketball team in 2024 to 2025. We'll do another episode of Who Cares featuring some Big 12 football media day stuff, some KU basketball stuff, and we'll finish up with whose stat line is it anyway going into a stat to see if Nick can give it a guess.

Today's episode is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. Make every moment more as playoffs wind down, the sports stop sporting like you want them to, but this summer, FanDuel is hooking up all customers with a boost or a bonus daily. That's right. There's something for everyone every day, all summer long. You can get in on the Scottish Open or whatever you want to do right now.

Visit FanDuel.com and get started today. Okay, so we're going into this could be a similar question to the one we posed last week. In fact, there's probably going to be two of the main names that we brought up last week who are going to be the same ones this week. But I'm curious if there's any opening for a different name on this week um leading score for this year's team is this hunter dickinson is like an easy favorite or are you willing to entertain somebody else uh if if i were doing vegas odds i think I would have Hunter Dickinson at like plus 150 plus 200. Do you think that's a fair number? I almost wonder, would he be like negative odds? Would he be like minus 120 or

something like that? I don't think so because you go back to last year, he averaged about 18 a game. That's only about a point more than what AJ store did at Wisconsin. The thing, the reason why averaged more points per game last season, like when he played. So, yeah. And, and look, I think that's a really good way to kind of try and answer what it's going to look like next year is look at what happened with Kevin McCuller. I don't think that was by design. I don't think bill self intended on Kevin McCuller being the leading scorer. It was that the offense got so stagnant at times and they had a really tough time creating opportunities that he was really the only guy who could not only handle the ball, but create his own shot. store fits that mold but i think in an ideal world you don't have to get into those quote unquote hero ball moments as much if the offense is running the way you want it to which is going to be predicated on getting hunter dickinson touches in the post so i think in an ideal world

the coaching staff wants hunter dickinson to be the leading score i I can still, I can still foresee a scenario where AJ store is that guy and KU still a really good team. But I think because of how we know they want to play Hunter Dickinson is still gotta be the answer. I agree. I think it's the vanilla answer. I think it's the right answer. But if like what you were saying, if you were doing Vegas odds on it, like what number would you need to be tempted to take AJ store? Cause to me, honestly, as low as like, I don't know, plus two 50, I'd probably be comfortable taking a shot in the dark there. Yeah. I mean, that's probably close to what it would be.

It's kind of like golf odds, right? It's like, there's going to be a grouping of guys who are going to be tight, tightly packed up at the top. It's like, I don't want to bet Scottie Scheffler four to one, you know, I'd rather take my shot on somebody who's 30 to one. And maybe I only win once every six weeks, but I'm going to make more money. Right.

Right. But that's just it. If we're putting in these hypothetical odds, if we've got Hunter at plus 200 and AJ store at plus two 50 or plus 300 is AJ Griffin at plus 1000 is Zeke Mayo at plus 1400 because those are the numbers I'd be more interested in. Okay. So, so which of those dark horses, if I, if I did tell you that AJ store and a hundred Dickinson, like I looked into the crystal ball and I saw that they finished second and third on KU and scoring next season, which guy would you go to, to be that answer for a third? No, for the leading score. If I told you that, that somebody else you served, it would be AJ Griffin. I think

we talked about this a little bit. What was that riley griffin what did i say aj aj griffin um yeah i think it would be riley griffin because he has enough tools in his bag i think to be able to get it done i'm not i mean zeke is interesting but i'm just not sold yet because of the level that he's coming from like r Ryland Griffin was starting for a final four team. That's a lot different than coming from South Dakota state. So I'm just kind of trying to picture it in my head. Like how does the season go? How does this guy look in a Kansas uniform and how does he wind up being, you know, a 20 point per game score? Cause that's probably what it's going to take. Like it's going to be a race 20 because I do think there will be a 20 point per game score on this team uh you know go back to Jalen Wilson two years ago taking that

big leap and he was the team's like leading offensive threat he shot it like 15 plus times a game that's going to be the difficult part is to get to that total you got to take a lot of shots Derek it'd be great if you got to 20 points and you were just like the most efficient offensive player in the country, but that seems unlikely. So it'd have to be Rylan Griffin, and it would get to that point because he's the guy who we think AJ Storr is going to be.

He's the guy who's going to come in and be able to create his own shot, shoot 42% from three point range, and also, you know, finishing in transition, getting to the line, et cetera, because you have to do it in a lot of different ways if you're going to get to that 20 point mark. Yeah, I think for Ryland Griffin to do it, it would have to look kind of like how Ochi Ibashi got there to near that 20 point per game mark, right? You're shooting a lot of threes, you're shooting that really high percentage. I think that would be the answer for me too, for what it's worth. And I think there is something to the idea of you have this kid in Ryland Griffin who was, I don't know, top 60 recruit

in the country, something like that right around there. And you didn't play a ton as a freshman year. You really showed a lot of progress in year two. So the natural inclination is, can you make that same jump from year two to year three and if that does happen then I think you are in discussion right that kind of becomes the question it's is the the version of Ryland Griffin Kansas is getting this year the same version of Ryland Griffin last year which to be clear that would still be very helpful for what this Kansas team needs or is it one that takes another step forward and if it is then I think that kind of is in the discussion but it's weird because I also think like okay if you were saying who has the highest floor as opposed to ceiling for scoring the most points on the team, like number one and number two would be Hunter Dickinson and AJ Store in whatever order you want to talk about.

Probably Hunter one, AJ Store number two. I actually think in terms of the floor, like the ceiling, there's no way we didn't even toss this guy's name out. And I don't think there's any way it would happen, but the floor, I think KJ Adams would have to be third because like, you know what you're going to get from KJ. It's going to be between like 10 to 13 points. I don't know that honestly, I don't, because I don't know how much he's going to play Derek. Do you, let's start here. How many minutes per do you think kj adams forget whether or not you think he's going to start how many minutes for kj this year i'm gonna i'm gonna sort of answer that question with a question how many players does kansas even have who can play the four

the four is is is made up there's no such thing it's true who are the five best fours in the nba it's a made-up. They don't exist anymore. We thought that the center was dead, Derek. It's not. The center is not a dinosaur. The power forward doesn't exist. There are wings, right? There are bigs who can step out.

There really aren't fours anymore. So, and mind you, KJ Adams isn't even a four it's like can he play the four yeah well why can he play the four because he's got big muscles sure i don't know six seven like those the qualifications is bill self going to be comfortable playing six 580 pound rylan griffin as your basically second largest person on the floor I don't think he is I think it's AJ Storm and KJ Adams I think those are the only guys you're going to really play at the floor I really do if you want to talk about Zach Clemens like that's another discussion some people think they're playing I don't I don't think that works yeah so I think we're kind of on

the same page there um I think there is an inherent floor to what he's going to play I but you know what no I'm actually going to stop you because you brought up the measurables for Rylan Griffin, and AJ's store I think is shorter but probably weighs more. KJ's like what, 6'6", 215, 220? I think he's much more than 220. Have you seen that dude's he's like 240 all right and please tell me and how was his size because that's what we're talking about here size

how did he use his size to his advantage last year like kj i like k. I want to make it very clear. I was a KJ apologist coming into last season. And now over the course of this off season, I feel like I've had to kind of flip to push back on some of the ideas that like, nope, pencil him in for 30 a night. He's the guy. It didn't work last year. I don't know how else to break this down. It didn't work at all.

KJ and Hunter. I don't think he's going to this down. It didn't work at all. KJ and Hunter. I don't think he's going to play as much because he's undersized. He has T-Rex arms. He can't use his size to his advantage defensively. Yes, he has good leaping ability. He can dunk. He can finish inside. He is strong.

Totally understand that. If you could take that out of the equation offensively and give me a guy who can shoot 35% from three and then say it's like just a wash on defense. Who are you taking? KJ is still going to play. Don't get me wrong. But I don't think he's playing 25 plus minutes a night. And if you tell me he's playing 18 to 20, that's fine. But he's not scoring 10 points a night if that's the case.

Okay. I think I would take that. I think I would take a bet KJ to finish top three in points, top four, top four in points per game on next year's team. We'll get there. Top four. All right. Let's get on to another segment of who cares going into some more KU

basketball stuff with Hunter Dickinson, going into some big 12 football media days on locked on Jayhawks. First, this episode of the show is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. I love sports. You love them so much, but you never want them to stop. And as the playoffs have gone away here, we're kind of in that sports doldrum. But FanDuel lets you keep going whenever you want. All you have to do is open up the app and dream up bets

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FanDuel official sports betting partner of Major League Baseball and the Locked On Podcast Network. All right, let's get to another episode of Who Cares? I'm going to give you two topics. You tell me which one you care more about and why. First up, I don't know if you saw KU Basketball tweeted out a, like, I guess highlight reel of them practicing. And two things stood out to me. One, Rakeese Passmore threw down a cool dunk.

The other one, Hunter Dickinson was rocking a headband. Which of those do you care more about? Does Bill Self still have the rule where if you want to wear a headband in game, then you have to wear it during every practice? That used to be a thing. It's like you can wear headbands, but then you have to wear it all the time. So that's interesting to me. I care a little bit about that.

Rakeez Passmore, like he seems to be generating some buzz this summer with like just how explosive and athletic he is, maybe a little bit underrated in terms of like his recruiting profile and where he was ranked, but he's got like serious bounce and that excites me a lot. know how i feel about dunking that was that dunk was cooler than any dunk anybody had in a game kj may have had a couple cool ones last year but that was that was sick and that's different coming from the guard position being able to get downhill and like finish at the rim so i'm gonna say i care more about rakees matt pass more but now i'm really interested to find out, okay, are you just a guy who's going to throw down three or four of those in transition when there's nobody

around you this year, but you're not really going to be a difference maker or is this just like a glimpse into what you can do athletically? How does the rest of your game around it fill out? But that excites me. That excites me a lot it does as well but honestly it's the headband for me honestly when i when i first saw it i was like is that true timmy that's kind of what he looked like with the headband on uh real quick power ranking of ku players with a headband any come to mind all time i don't know like who goes up there on the mount rush mount rushmore would have to be aaron. Okay. I think for what it's worth, they have to be wearing it at KU.

Cause like, I don't think we'll Chamberlain wore it at KU. He did in the pros, but I don't think that counts. I think you're right. I'm going to go Aaron miles, Jr. Giddens,

Dwan Harris, Jeff graves. Bam, bam, bam, bam. I don't think I'm missing anybody obvious, but those are,

those are four really solid honorable mention. Carlton brag. I'm assuming, bam, bam, bam. I don't think I'm missing anybody obvious, but those are four really solid choices. Honorable mention, Carlton Bragg, I'm assuming? No. He's just straight up off the list. Sorry, Carlton. Next comment here. Brett Yormark, he was pro-private equity or saying they're continuing to explore alternate TV windows.

Which of those two Brett Yormark comments from Big 12 Media Days do you care more about? Anytime you start using the word equity you know you just like throwing that around I'm not gonna care I'm just telling you right now I don't care at all so by default I'm gonna go with the TV stuff but I'll be honest with you man um I know in this new world of college realignment it's not even really new it's been going on for over a decade now. But everybody, when talking about, like, why are these schools making these decisions? Why are Texas and Oklahoma, why are they doing this? And people will get upset.

And then the other side will say, it's all about the money, guys. They're making way more money in the SEC. Oregon, you know, going to the Big Ten. There's just so much more money, guys. It's all about the money. I get it. I understand. It's all about.

Thank you for breaking it down for me. I get it. I still don't like it. TV deals, I guess that's cool. Don't really care. Wherever they put it, I'm going to end up watching it. But I'm just kind of not really interested in the conversations. Like, just let me know where I need to get my subscription and I'll see you on

Saturdays in the fall. Yeah. I'm kind of with both of these things. It's just like, just tell me the end result and then I'll figure it out from there. Okay. Last one here. The big 12 is launching an alumni council or it being released that Kansas has three top 100 players on college football 25 with the ratings for Devin Neal, Jalen Daniels, and Kobe Bryant all 90 or better. Obviously we're going college football here. I have no idea what the first one was the alumni council. I'm not interested in that at all. And very, very interested in KU having three players in the top 100 I saw a

graphic that came out that said that it was listing the teams that had the most players in the top 100 of the EA college football game and they were all the usual suspects like Georgia, Ohio State, Alabama, whatever but the last team listed was LSU. They were the sixth team in this graphic, and they had four players in the top 100. Another way to look at it was, if they would have expanded this graphic to seven, is Kansas on there?

Does Kansas have an elite amount of top-end talent? Three guys on a team that's going to play 60, 70 plus this year. It doesn't seem like much. It really doesn't. But it's kind of shocking to hear that like KU has three of the top players in college football. We already knew it.

And like a video game releasing their, their player ratings doesn't exactly validate like what we saw last fall and what we're going to see this fall, but it's still really exciting. And two of those guys were recruited by the final, uh, less miles recruiting class. I mean,

Brent Dearman bringing in Jalen Daniels and everything. So, uh, yeah, it looks like they left them with a nice cupboard. Say the least. All right, let's finish up here.

Whose stat line is it? Anyway, we'll go over fun stat. This will be KU basketball related. Coming up on the other side. Finishing things up on this episode of Locked on Jayhawks with whose stat line is it anyway? I'm going to give a stat.

Nick's going to try to guess who the answer is. And this kind of circles back to our opening topic, the conversation who's going to lead Kansas in scoring in 2024 to 2025. Because if you're picking AJ Storr or Ryland Griffin or one of these new players, how often does it happen that Kansas has a new player, quote unquote, that leads the team in scoring? So your question today is how many times has a new player, and to be clear, what I'm defining as new player is a true freshman or a transfer player, and to be clear, what I'm defining as new player, is a true freshman or a transfer in their first year? So I'm not counting Ben McElmore.

I'm not counting Dedrick Lawson. Both of them redshirted before they played. New player, first year at Kansas. How many times has a new player led a Bill Self Kansas team in scoring? Okay, so 2006, the year when like Chalmers and Rush rush those guys all came in for the first time i'm pretty sure that was a brand new starting five so there's one i think it was brand new rush um 2008 2009 2010 no no no 2011 um trying to think who was there in 2011 uh 2012 no um ben mclemore doesn't count andrew wiggins is to 2015 who led the team in scoring in 2015 forgotten year yeah it really

is like i know kelly uber was there but i don't remember if he led the team in scoring or not i want to say he did oh it's going to annoy me um i'm going to say i know two i'm going to say i'm forgetting one so i'm going to go with three no the correct answer was two i actually don't know who would have been 2015. would have been like frank maybe no it would have been perry ellis of course yeah that's? No, it would have been Perry Ellis, of course. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Okay.

So anyway, the answer was two. It was Brandon Rush and Andrew Wiggins. And what do both those guys have in common? They were freshmen coming in. So a transfer, which I guess that's something that probably is bound to break now that we're in the transfer portal era. And it was darn close last year with Hunter Dickinson. But I find that interesting that a transfer to this point has never led a

bill self Kansas team in scoring. And even if you do want to include the freshmen, that means two times in 20 years, right? I mean, it's, it's not very often. And those two years with Wiggins and rush,

it was like a changing of the guard, changing of the guard, both times, brand new starting lineups. You were returning virtually nothing from the prior season. So yeah, I think that's part of it. I also think just trust like Bill Self relies heavily on trust. You have to earn that over time. Hunter Dickinson has it. We'll see about AJ Store, Rylan Griffin, the rest of the bunch, but yeah, that's interesting. I thought it would have been higher though. Yeah. So to your point, bringing this all around, talking about trust,

KJ Adams is going to be top two in scoring. We've moved up the list. Okay. We're bumping him up actually. Yeah, we're bumping him up. All right. That's going to do it for this episode. Where can you find some of your work, Nick?

You can check out our podcast wherever you get your podcast, as well as YouTube. Could be wrong. At Nick underscore Schwert on Twitter. I'm at D Johnson radio. You can find the show here with locked on Jayhawks, anywhere you get your podcast, well as YouTube. Could be wrong. At Nick underscore Schwert on Twitter. I'm at DJohnsonradio. You can find the show here with Locked on Jayhawks anywhere you get your podcasts, YouTube as well. We'll see you next time for another edition of LOJ.

Later.